All extremes of feeling are allied with madness
by VenusJay
Summary: A conversation about love on a rooftop of London that changes everything.
1. Chapter 1

"Why?"

"No."

"No?"

"No, Sherlock," he sighed. "After all of this, you don't get to ask boring questions. "I know you can do better."

From the ground, London could almost be called beautiful. The winding streets of cobbles interspersed with the chill of urbanisation was just the juxtaposition needed for such an eclectic people. From above however, it was magnificent. A spiderweb of information and the dainty cross stitch of old and new stretched out into the darkening clouds. All of it stood as a riddle to be solved, the greatest game; and every last inch of it bowed down to the man before him now. London was enigmatic, Moriarty was impossible.

"All this so you could kill me," he suggested. Obvious. Perhaps such ignorance would smoke him out. The statement only seemed to rouse anger in the smaller man. He shook his head in exasperation as Mycroft once had at him.

"Tell me about him," Moriarty asked as though this were a polite conversation and the gun in his hand wasn't angled just so.

"Magnussen."

"Wrong."

"Mycroft?"

"Try again," he hissed.

Sherlock said nothing.

"Try again."

"John."

He nodded slowly, wide eyed fascination taking over his features.

"There is little to tell that you don't know already. Ex-army doctor, invalided from Afghanistan-"

Moriarty put his finger to his lips. This was the calmest Sherlock had ever seen him. He almost could pass for serene.

"He loves you," Moriarty said in a whisper.

Sherlock remained silent.

"He shot a man for you."

"Sebastian hasn't?"

He seemed to suck in a breathe between his teeth then before chuckling.

"Good boy, Sherlock. Very good."

He bristled from that comment, feeling an imaginary leash between them as Moriarty pulled him this way and that.

"Sometimes," he said. "We do things we shouldn't, things that are naughty, if we think the one we love would be happy."

An uneasy silence stretched from one comment to the next, the consulting criminal deep in thought, weapon lowering slightly.

"Wouldn't you agree, Sherlock?"

He stayed silent.

"We even do it when the person we love doesn't love us back."

"You wouldn't know what love is."

"Don't I? Hmmm. Maybe not. Maybe...not. No, I wouldn't. Wouldn't know the thrill of finding someone who understands, someone brilliant and life-altering," he emphasised almost every syllable, rage seeping through. "Sacrifice and loss. Wouldn't know at all."

"Make your point or shoot me, either way I'm getting rather bored."

"Don't you think it funny, Sherlock. Don't you?"

"What exactly?"

"John. John Watson. Dr Watson. How he loves you. All your...flaws, little insecurities. That's the part he loves, right? Those parts- the drugs part and the...unmentionable things," he smiled conspiratorially. "He would never be ashamed of you for those things, make you feel bad about those things. Would he?"

Sherlock looked away. He wasn't sure he liked this game.

"He would stay long after the brilliance faded because he loves you like that," he sneered. "John Watson sees you as a battlefield," he shook his head sadly. "And what happens when we peel away the shrapnel and wipe away the gunpowder?"

He motioned something drifting away.

"Ta-ta."

"Your obsession with me is your own doing. You love the game, the chase."

"Oh Sherlock," Moriarty walked towards him, bridging the gap of the London rooftop.

"I thought we were the same, you and I. But it isn't you, is it," he reached up to smooth aside a stray curl that ruffled in the breeze. "It's him. We try to love you but we don't know how."

"John knows how."

Moriarty shrugged.

"You'll see it, soon enough. All those deductions will show. John loves you. I love you. But it's the same love."

Moriarty slipped away through the door leading to the stairs and Sherlock pulled his coat tighter, feeling himself trembling.


	2. Chapter 2

What was the world coming to? He brushed a few stray crumbs from the newspaper and held the toast aloft with one hand, turning the page in a swift arc and letting the paper settle once more. My god, what was the world coming to? He looked up briefly to see Sherlock staring out of the window, ignoring the scrambled eggs John had made with a resigned huff.

"I could always unscramble them for you," he said, trying to get the daft git's attention. He wished he hadn't when Sherlock glanced at him with a blank expression. Well that was a bit not good.

"Sherlock, are you feeling alright?"

"Why do you ask?"

John set down his toast and reached over to feel Sherlock's forehead. A normal temperature if a little greasy from sleep. The intimacy of having it on his fingers felt strange. He never usually saw patients at the surgery straight from their beds and the feel of it cast his mind back a few years. It was odd to think that Sherlock was like normal people with occasionally greasy skin and matted hair. He was usually good at masking an absence of sleep but shadows circles under his eyes seemed to be growing deeper of late.

"You just seem a bit, em," he searched for the least offensive word and then thought damn that Sherlock didn't do offended. "Well, a bit vacant."

"Oh."

"Mycroft on your case?"

"Mycroft?"

John surveyed him over the tea he raised to his lips.

"Your brother, Mycroft, yes."

"No."

"Right then. Well this may surprise you to know but I am not, in fact, a mind reader. So if there is something bothering you, would you care to share it with me?"

"I am fine."

"Fine?"

"Umm."

In his experience, the word fine meant anything but. Deciding not to push the matter he decided to change the subject.

"Any interesting cases?"

"No," Sherlock replied evenly, returning his gaze to the window. This version of Sherlock was more than a little alarming. Perhaps after all he really had knackered himself, likely dead on his feet.

"Maybe you should go back to bed."

"I'm thinking of retiring."

"The sleep will do you good."

Sherlock looked at him for a long moment.

"From consultancy. I'm thinking of retiring."

John set down the tea mug.

"What?"

"Mycroft made me a generous offer once. The hope is that it still stands. I am sure he would be more than happy to assist in the purchase of the flat should you wish. I know an army pension is hardly sufficient means for a mortgage. Or perhaps another flatmate would make it within reach."

"Sherlock," he said. "Just- what do you- what are you," he spluttered, fingers clenching hard to the mug handle. "You have got to be," he raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. He must be in the middle of a nightmare. Across the small table Sherlock only looked at him with cold distance.

"You're serious. You're really fucking serious. I hope you're joking. You better be fucking joking Sherlock."

He really thought for a moment he might throw something.

"Let's hear it then, this offer that's caught your fancy."

"A minor role overseas."

"Right. Right, yeah. Of course. Are you really not having me on here?"

"No, John."

"So you're just going to leave."

"I will arrange some things in London and then ultimately, yes."

John sat back, straight against the chair, trying to find some purchase on reality.

"This is Moriarty, isn't it," he heard himself say. The almost imperceptible twitch in Sherlock's cheek told him he was right.

"If this is some attempt to be noble Sherlock, I'm not having it, do you hear? Whatever it is, whatever this psycopath is having you do, we can get through it together. Just tell me the plan."

Sherlock shook his head.

"It isn't a game, John. I intend to leave for my own reasons."

"I don't believe you."

"I'm honoured you have such faith in me."

"Stop it, Sherlock, you stop this right now."

He felt a blinding white anger descending into the space between them. His knuckles clenched tightly as his nerves were, Sherlock a picture of calm as he stood from the table, sweeping in an elegant arc towards his bedroom.

"Is it Irene?"

He stopped, head tilted to glance over his shoulder.

"The Woman. How could it be John, she's dead."

John felt the air taken from his lungs.

"No. No," he stammered. "Mycroft got her in that thingy, witness protection business." He found it incredibly difficult to be angry at this version of Sherlock. This one seemed so lost, haunted by a demon dog. "Look, Sherlock. I know you must be feeling angry and confused but you don't need to leap off into the sunset."

He made little show of any reaction before entering his room and closing the door.


	3. Chapter 3

The very first rush of Cocaine had been horrifying. Sherlock had been minimal in that first dose. He thought his superior mind would act as a impermeable membrane between himself and the sub standard junkies of London. He had worried it would be too marvellous to give up, he never counted on it being dull. The experiment had been a failure but for scientific purposes he needed a comparison. So he took another hit a week later. Blown out pupils and laboured breathing were to mark the beginnings of his drug pursuits. The voices here were kinder, the scratch of nails against skin was sweeter, the air was sharper. Silence was silent. It had not taken long until the membrane had broken down and Sherlock had taken to searching the streets for the best cut. Mycroft almost always watching from the shadows, sending in staff to chaperone and clean up after him.

His early twenties had been an endless haze of sleeping in a police cell, curled up in Lestrade's lap as he vomited up his digestive system. It had been terrifying and toxic but thrilling and addictive and necessary as the air in his lungs. He could well understand addiction. For some, the biting notes of the blade to flesh and for others the smell of War. The addicting feeling of being needed up there with the desire to live. Living is habit, living on the edge is addiction.

Now, thirty feet from his flatmate, Sherlock wondered about John's addictions. He came to the startling conclusion that he had provided the opium. When he thought about John, there was a sense of contentment within his chest cavity. He could easily imagine mornings avoiding runny scrambled egg and listening to John rant about the self service checkout. It surprised him that in his own mind, crime solving and chasing criminals came quite far down on the list of things he wanted to do with John. He had long resigned himself to the idea that John and he would remain determinedly friends despite his own desire and the desire he was almost certain John felt. In time he began to suspect that just maybe, love had snuck up on him.

But everything had changed. Moriarty had seen to that. Sherlock could no longer find the contentment, only an empty space. John, even in spite of hoping, was not in love with him. He loved him as Sherlock had loved the twinge of a fresh needle in his arm, pleasure blocking all measure of damage. He loved him as Moriarty loved him. With a blinding force of illogical and unreasonable faith, Moriarty training him to be devious, John training him to be socially appropriate. He turned both over on his tongue and they both tasted as bitter as the other.

He stayed John's nervous hands as Cocaine had done for him. He soothed away the trouble of Psychosomatic pain as the little 7% solution had eased his own imaginary pains. Every glance and every touch in his mind left him questioning, left him doubting and now from this side of the closed door he found himself crying. His memory palace had an endless array of images to show, flashing as a slideshow in his mind. John's disappointment, confusion and embarrassment as Lestrade tore apart their home in the hunt for drugs. Sherlock had felt ashamed, Lestrade throwing him a look of guilt every now and then as he hid with his tail between his legs. Everything piecing together in a Spiderweb of doubt. He was addictive, very different from loveable. Moriarty was laughing somewhere and Sherlock could hear a smirking lilt licking at the inner corners of his conciousness.

"If I can't have you, he doesn't get you either."


End file.
